Progress seen in environment internship program

The internship program that primarily deals with coral reef management and other environmental concerns in the CNMI has steadily gained progress through the years, according to the Division of Environmental Quality, Coastal Resources Management and Division of fish and Wildlife.

These three government agencies are directly involved with the hosting of students choosing coral reef protection and preservation as their short course during the summer internship.

“Our internship program is getting better each year,” said program coordinator Reina Camacho of DEQ at the completion of the two-month training course Wednesday at the CRM Conference Room along Beach Road in San Jose.

Ten students—six from the Northern Marianas College and one from the University of California Santa Barbara—received their certificates after their final PowerPoint presentations of what they’ve accomplished during their internship.

This brought to 52 the total number of students who have completed the same course since the internship program started six years ago in 2002.

This year’s batch included Georgia Cabrera, Jose Quan, Andrew “Kila” Moses, Leovita Cabrera, Philip Johnson, Teresa Miller, Solomon Castro, Daniel Villegas, Matthew Blanco and Francisco Palacios. The last three were not present during the final presentation of their works.

The interns presented samples of their projects and analyzed them as well as gave their outlook regarding the environment and what they would like to become in the future.

Although they have courses that are not somehow related to environmental issues, all of them wanted to dwell in conservation programs in the future.

Georgia Cabrera said she would like to go back to DEQ and be one of the staff after finishing her Liberal Art major at NMC. She said she wants to pursue a degree in natural resources management.

“I gained a lot of knowledge. I learned the basic principles of watershed management by analyzing watershed database,” Georgia Cabrera told a thin but appreciative audience composed of DEQ, CRM and DFW staff and mentors.

One of her works was to develop an island stewardship booklet for Lau Lau Bay homeowners. She also joined the reef flat monitoring activities that all interns went through during the summer.

Jose Quan discussed the importance of water quality, the process of determining how much salt in present in the water as well as analyzed and compared each area to another.

Quan said there is not much diversity around Garapan compared to coastal areas in Marpi because of the level of pollution in both areas. He wants to pursue a marine biology course to learn more and help manage the environment.

Andrew Moses helped the CRM monitoring team improve its website. He said there is really a need to protect the precious environment using a long-term approach and that an inter-agency collaborative effort is critical to protect the oceans.

Moses, a liberal Arts student at NMC, had the chance to see the underwater world, which was an eye-opener for him as he wants to pursue a degree in marine biology.

Other works during the internship included sand sampling and clam measurement along the beaches, which he said gave an idea about the condition of their habitat.

Leovita Cabrera learned how to create thematic maps while training about the Geographic Information Systems.

Such maps, she said, would eventually help anyone in locating critical infrastructures, especially those related to environment like pump stations, dikes and as well as conservation and watershed areas.

One of the interns was a student of Environmental Science and management at the University of California Santa Barbara, Philip Johnson, who learned about native and invasive species on the island. He was also able to help design a website for the DFW where he completed his summer internship.

Also at the DFW was Teresa Miller, who made and distributed posters around town to make people aware about the endangered species in the CNMI as well as where people are not allowed to catch fish.

For Solomon Castro, he would like to pursue a course in GIS and become an environmentalist in the future.

Among his experiences during the internship were visiting water drainage systems, clogged canals and checking to see if companies in the CNMI are complying with DEQ regulations.